


What the Daffodils Whispered

by TheEarlyKat



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Lots of flowers, M/M, The usual tags, some karl, some templars - Freeform, the 5th escape attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEarlyKat/pseuds/TheEarlyKat
Summary: Anders escapes Kinloch Hold once again, leaving Karl behind. The world outside is a lot to take in all at once, but not enough to make him forget.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I got to work with the amazing and talented [beammetothemoon](http://beammetothemoon.tumblr.com/) and her art for this event. Thank you for working so well with me! Enjoy.

Anders tipped his head back to watch the clouds crawl across the sky. Their great, billowing arms were like sails to catch the wind that aided them in their ever ongoing ride around the world. If he squeezed his eyes shut tight enough he could almost remember the sound of it; a faint hissing through leaves and grasses alike that was nearly overpowered by the whisper of slippered feet and hushed conversation. Unseen without the help of a landscape, it could push like an enraged bronto - or a templar, Anders thought, as goosebumps crawled up his arms. The hands shoving him forward left when he muttered a curse under his breath and shuffled forward along with the rest of the mages.

They weren't allowed outside of the Circle - not since the incident on the lake when he was just an apprentice, tempted by fresh air and free will. Neither were the healing herbs. Safe inside glass walls, only the Chantry could use them. No grazer could reap the rewards owed to them. Thus, when First Enchanter Irving suggested it a good idea to bring back some activity to those inside, they were corralled into the confines of the green house. All the benefits of the outside without being outside. 

The bright sunlight and cooler temperatures were a poor substitute of really feeling the warm rays of the sun on bare skin, washed cool by a southern breeze carrying the scent of all the pines and wildflowers with it rather than the dusty smell of embrium and elfroot. Anders knew because he'd experienced it. Four times, already, he'd felt the sensation of being free - if only for a short time. Tastes were not what he desired. Anders wanted the gorge himself on it, the sights and smells and feelings. 

The templars could thwart his escapes but they could not put a halt to them. Freedom was right outside, just a wall away. Clear, showing them all what they could not have, could only dream of having. If taken too far, that dream could attract demons and there would be no chances at all when they were cut down. Simply for wanting. 

Glass was only sand that was heated. Anders had seen it happen a thousand times - had made it happen himself a thousand times as an apprentice. It was a time consuming and repetitive action that disguised a profit for the Chantry as a lesson in magic control. He'd never thought what might happen if the sand was continued to be heated. He did now, though, with his hands pressed against the cool surface. His breath fogged up the glass, obscuring the landscape spread out below him, but not the reflection of the templar approaching him.

The glass was heating steadily under his palms. A slow inhale, drawing in energy from across the Veil as easily as drawing air into his lungs, and the temperature spiked. He flinched, a jump of a shoulders, and an air bubble burst within the clear wall. Anders pressed forward, closer still, until his nose touched the glass. The condensation was gone, lifted from the glass when he started warming it, and Anders stuck his tongue out at the templar when the man frowned. 

"Step away from the wall." Anders moved closer to the wall, away from the templar. "I said step away, mage."

"I'm only looking," he protested, fingers curling into fists to steady his hands before they shook. His nails bit into his palms, the pain a grounding distraction from the buzz creeping along his skin as the templar neared. His mana reacted to the lyrium coursing through the man's veins and his memories of past encounters set his heart to racing. The two nauseating feelings had his head swimming and ears ringing. Flames licked between his fingers and Anders' shoulders stiffened. An unsteady breath eased between clenched teeth calmed his magic back down to something more controlled and another gas bubble popped. Several more followed after it, working their way through the heating glass to rise before bursting. It wouldn't take much more.

One more push of mana and -

Anders felt his fingers grow cold, first, then tingle as the magic was shoved from him. It was like jumping into Lake Calenhad all over again - one moment he was warm and clear-headed and the next his blood was ice and he'd forgotten how to breathe. Nausea rolled over him just as the choppy waves had, choking him, and what magic he had after the Silence knotted itself deep within his core, out of reach. The templar barked another command out. Anders could see his lips moving about on hid reddening face, but he couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears. The templar wasn't appeased by his inaction, and the hand gripping his shoulder, hard, tightened enough that Anders felt the joint shift under the fingers digging themselves into the soft muscle there. The templar shoved him none too gently into the glass to get his attention.

It wasn't the push Anders expected, but it was enough.

The greenhouse wall cracked, then shattered. A million and one tiny shards fell in a gentle hiss of fractured rainbows before they were scattered across the floor by the burst of wind that tore through the opening. Mages gasped, their eyes widening as their lungs filled with the first fresh breath of air in what, for some, was decades. Anders breathed deep himself, tasting the sharp bitterness of the oncoming winter season, the cool threat of rain, and the delicate touch of the favored wildflowers beneath it all. 

The templar's curse was lost in the wind. He growled and moved forward, pressing Anders close to the remaining bit of wall.

"Step away!"

Anders laughed, a nervous shake of his shoulders. "If that's what you want." He stepped away from the templar just as the man reached forward the grab him. The outstretched hand hit his side and sent him backwards faster than he'd planned and his heel hit empty air. Anders hadn't fully thought through what he'd do once an exit was open to him, not when it was several floors above the ground that was his destination, but he was only one call for backup away from losing this opportunity. 

Anders leaned back and let the open air take him.

He hit the ground hard, knocking what wind he'd managed to gain back from the Silence right out of him again. The grass was unforgiving beneath him, the blades pricking at his bare skin where sharp rocks didn't reach themselves. His head rang hard enough to make his teeth tingle, and he ran his tongue over them to check they were still all there before splitting his mouth into a grin, focusing it on the templar leaning out the broken glass as he rose to unsteady legs. The templar wasn't alone, not when such a commotion as shattering glass and a falling body was concerned, and several mages pressed against the nearby intact walls to watch the next scenes unfold.

Anders felt his smile widen, to see them watch him with round eyes and mouths agape. All but one - an older mage who's shoulders were shaking and had a hand pressed to his mouth.

Karl.

The elation at being outside again dimmed, just a moment, at the sight of the enchanter and the worry he seemed to display. What was there to worry about? For the first time in months Anders felt his throat burn from something other than fear and vomit and the tightness of holding back screams. His eyes blurred with tears from the cold air rushing into dry eyes. His legs were churning through mud and grass to get away from the templars that would soon be after him, not through another looping hallway to a desperate corner he could wait out their wrath for. The sun broke through a line of clouds and the sky turned gold.

Maker, for all that Karl spoke of trying to break the Circles from the inside, it couldn't compete with the feeling of taking the institutions down from the outside. It was likely a quieter and easier approach than storming the walls, kicking down the doors, breaking the windows, and yelling demands to change, but where would the sunlight be as he sat in the dim library, reading up on histories and writing documents? Where would the wind fit between whispered words and hidden plans? Only shadows would play upon the corridors of Kinloch Hold while Anders would find rainbows beneath storm clouds. 

It wasn't too late to go back, to call Karl down to join him. He'd hold his arms out with a grin, shout that he'd catch him. Anders could imagine the bemused smile the older enchanter would give him at the offer, they way his beard would twitch with the motion, and the small shake of his head that tossed gray strands of hair into his eyes. The picture was strong in his mind and Anders nearly turned around to see if it was more than just his imagination until he heard shouting. Several templars burst from the main doors of the Circle, swords of Mercy raised. Anders sped up. There was only exit from the island the tower resided in, and that was across the lake. With no mana to call upon he couldn't keep himself warm during the swim or imbue his limbs with a strength to keep them from failing and sinking below the surface. It left the dingy that transported food, medicines, sometimes new mages across from the dock in Redcliffe - and the templar that guarded it.

It was one templar versus a squadron, and Anders knew where his chances lay. 

The templar at the boat puzzled through the problem as well, as his loose jaw and raised eyebrows lowered into a grim expression. His own sword was drawn from the sheathe at his hip, and Anders could feel the static tingle of a Smite race across his skin. There was no lyrium in his system to ignite, not after the Silence. The Smite tried, still, biting deep within his core to find every lace trace of magic and burn it clean from his bloodstream until only a man lay, kicking weakly, on the ground. Anders was done with finding himself lower than the feet of the men who donned armor meant only to protect themselves. He was done letting their swords engraved with the Mercy Andraste had shown the mortal heart cut down those that deserved it most. Done with the institution that demanded, with one breath, to lock up everything he loved and, in another, take it all away - his freedom, his magic, his choices in life and love.

Anders squared his jaw, braced his shoulder, and launched himself at the lone templar.

The both of them went down, though it was only one that remained there. Mud gave way easily enough to the weight of one armored man and the momentum of the mage, but it did not let go easily. Water poured into the cracks of the plate, soaking the man's clothes and Anders' sleeves as he struggled to his feet as the mud grasped at his slippers and the man clawed at his ankles. He could hear the others screaming bloody murder at the attack. Beneath it, faintly, he heard the mages cheer. Anders hoped one of them was Karl.

It would only harm him to look back. In the span of the second it would take to turn around, pick Karl out amongst the gaggle of onlooking apprentices and enchanters, the squadron of templars could be upon him. His escape would be for nothing and there would be no chance of ever getting Karl out. Anders wrapped an arm about his middle to keep his swelling shoulder close to his side and stumbled away from the flailing templar, climbing unsteadily into the dingy with a silent promise to find another way on his lips. He picked up the paddle and started rowing towards the castle in the distance.

He had some time, Anders knew, before word reached beyond the tower in the middle of the lake - especially if he'd stolen the lake's only way of crossing. Redcliffe would be unaware of the chaos hidden behind the fog that rolled up it's embankments as templars and enchanters alike fought among themselves, accusing either party of letting a mage escape before even coming up with a plan to get him back. Anders could work with chaos. He could use the time to get far, far away, and then some sympathizer to come back with him and help. Karl would be free to join him. They'd have the whole wide world to cross if they so chose, together, happy, unburdened by the curse the Chantry called their magic with no eyes upon them to accuse of their every decision. The other mages would be free to decide their own path, whether they wished to go home or move forward. Thedas could see what the mages truly were - just people. People that could set trees on fire and freeze streams if they wanted to, but people! 

Like that had worked in the past.

Anders heaved a breathe, half a scoff at himself and half a relieved sigh. It burned in his lungs, cold and heavy, and weighed heavy on his tongue with the scents that followed the winds. He let it carry the small boat the last few feet to shore and tumbled his way over the side. The water was cold and soaked his slippers, and grass stuck to the hem of his robe as he made an unsteady bee-line towards the cover of Redcliffe's abundant gardens - it would do him no good to be spotted now, just after his escape. Blades of sweet corn leaves whipped at his face, creeping vines of beans tangled around his ankles, and thorny stems of herbs scratched at his hands. He wiped them on his robes, felt the sweat mix with the water.

He was outside.

In the depths of his thoughts he'd wandered past the tamed farmland and into the wilder roads. Smaller gardens lay before him, not as neatly fenced in as the ones behind and with more weeds mixed in than usable crops. The wild flowers he loved so much poked through the soil in other places - under the shade of trees and around stones and between the uneven cobblestone path. Behind him lay the lake and the Circle inside it. Between them both was him and a mile of uneven ground. Free ground. Free air. Plants that bent to nothing but the wind. Animals that ran because they had the room to. A bustling city with people that went about their days from the home to work to the market and back, morning after morning, because none told them that they should never see the sun again.

Anders peered from over a hedge, creeping from the outskirts of the farm to take on the wild growth of the forest. He wished and wondered what it must be like to have no schedule besides the one set in his own mind; he'd grown complacent to the strict hours the templars spent. He'd known soon enough, he supposed.

But it was never too early to stop the smell the flowers. Or, well, daffodils, if he wanted to be specific.

In the brown muck the Fereldans called home, the bright shocks of yellow were nearly enough to out compete the sun. He'd seen them from the tower's barred windows, smelled them when he sneaked through the lower levels to open those that weren't and let the breeze waft through, touched them on the rare occasion he was outside and far enough away from his pursuers to take the time to. As such was this.

Anders knelt by a patch and stretched out a hand he hadn't known was bleeding until a spot of red broke up the solid color. A cut from the glass or a splinter from the oar, he groused, as he turned his palm over to watch another ruby bead well along a sliver across his thumb. He sucked on the wound, copper overpowering the pollen, and eyed the flower. It was almost ironic in the way his blood - a mage's blood - coated something so beautiful. Blood magic was a sin in both the eyes of the Maker and men, His creations, and yet the earth in which the flower's roots buried themselves for nutrients soaked up the liquid greedily. 

Karl would have scolded him for the thought. That line of thinking could get him in trouble if he wasn't careful who he revealed it to, and Anders would turn the half-hearted swat at his head into something much more hot-blooded and made a joke about where else blood could go to. Karl's exasperated groan was loud enough in Anders' mind it was almost as if the older enchanter was there next to him. Anders' smile was small and bittersweet, and he wiped his hands on his robes before brushing the petals clean. Maybe it was just because the flower could potentially be tainted. Maybe it was because this flower was closest to him. Maybe it was because this flower reminded him of Karl.

Perhaps it was all three that had him picking the flower, cupping it gently in his hands, the same, small smile playing on his lips as he placed it in his robe pocket. A reminder that he had to go back, at some point, to get the others free. A token in case he was taken back, that he'd been outside the walls that served to make sure he'd never get another chance of seeing daffodils again. It would be a nice gift for Karl. As long as he didn't mention the blood. Or, maybe he would, if he came up with a better line before he saw the man again.


End file.
